Lamentations
by SynesthesiaAddict
Summary: Valenwind This is essentially Beneath the Red from Vincent's point of view. It is a much different, darker story... Rating will rise to M
1. Prologue

*This may be weird, writing the same fic from a different point of view, but after I read over Beneath the Red a couple times I realized that Vincent had a much, much different story. I promise you that the only similarity between the two is dialogue and specific circumstance. Vincent is a very complex person, and I felt the need to express that. For those of you who did not read Beneath the Red, I recommend it, but you don't really need to.*

*oh yes, I don't own 'em. Check the prof for the details*

Lamentations  
Prologue  
Secrets… Secrets…

It was hideous.

What I had stumbled upon by pure coincidence pulled up a wretchedness best left unnamed from my very soul. The black stain on my heart spilled out unto its beginnings as my damnable curiosity for the dust ridden computer revealed something even more despicable about Hojo.

He had taped it.

The bastard got his sick kicks not from just defiling all that was once me, but from watching it over and over again, possibly sharing the footage with others as twisted as himself. Humiliation on a whole new level stabbed me with a pang of old hatred and helplessness. Things I thought long taken care of, shoved under swallowed sorrow and heartbreak that left me with a constant dull melancholy ache, stirred, swelled and threatened to break the stranger I played behind all day.

No. No one could ever see this again.

With a shaking hand I removed the disc and tucked it into a random pocket. For what purpose I couldn't guess. I was outside myself suddenly, my utter self control weakening in my swirl of hatred and the growls of Chaos.

The demons bubbled up and burst in me, my arm acting on it's own accord. I don't know what I thought destroying the thing would accomplish, but it did give a glimmer of satisfaction to see Hojo's work destroyed.

How uncivilized of me. I brushed the glass from my prosthetic limb in disgust. Unclean. Very much so. I was sorry I ever told Cloud to come here. It was time to leave.

I swept down the library row and stopped. A glimmer of movement and a whiff of nicotine. Fear. Or more close to awe and horror.

"Cid," I accused, not turning around. He had seen it all. A sort of twist landed in my stomach. He had stumbled upon my most shameful secret, and though he didn't pass off as the gossiping type, I could just see the rumors, the whispers and the stares from here. He now knew things that not even Lucrecia had, and that made him dangerous.

"If you tell anyone… I will kill you."

End Prologue  
*********************************************************


	2. Cloud's Secret

*Unexpected smut in this chapter. ^_^ I didn't even think this would come out, but it did. Enjoy!*

Lamentations  
Chapter One  
Cloud's Secret

It was late. My eyes roamed the pages of a book of a forgotten subject but did not absorb the words as they glided by. Cid had thrown a wrench into my dynamic—twisted as it was—and it was all I could think about. Could I kill him? Oh yes, but would I? Would he dare risk it? I felt like I was playing chicken with the man. Pathetic.

I have to admit the knock startled me. It was a hesitant one. He had been standing outside my door for some time now, debating. I didn't move. If it was who I thought it was then he would peek in and see I didn't care for nor minded much his company. Anyone else (Cid perhaps?) would just walk away, uninterested in what a monster like myself would have to say.

Cloud found the door unlocked and stood awkwardly in the threshold. What he thought of me with the book in hand, calmly stretched out on my sheets doing my best to look uninterested but not annoyed was beyond my power to know. The door was achingly open, and it was one thing I suppose that could be called a pet peeve of mine: a lack of privacy.

"Get in or get out," I told him quietly after a moment of silence. Cloud quickly shut the door behind him and kind of frowned.

"How did you know?"

"About…?"

"The mansion."

Cloud had already poured out his soul before me. It seemed that he had taken up a sort of confidence in me, though I neither offered nor needed such confessions. I silently listened to him however, and only when he cornered me in conversation did I offer any consolation or advice. I never gave him what _he_ wanted; a piece of _my_ soul. Some connection other than the physical I suppose. No, he was weak on the inside, despite his youth and vigor, full of supple muscles and a surprising strength, submissive streak aside. That kind of bond held no interest for me. Lucrecia was dead proof that I had a lack of ability to protect those I love. Loyalty lead to obsession, and obsession causes one to break Turk rules.

He didn't know that I too spent years in that hole, nurturing a cold passive scorn for the world. Foolish boy. I knew exactly where and how those missing five years of his life were spent. How he coped was much different, but then again the high exposure to Mako warped his mind, so a combination of suppressed memory and poison from both Jenova and the Planet turned him into something both strong and weak; broken and reforged.

"You honestly think that Hojo sullied his hands with just yours and Zach's blood?" I finally asked. Selfish, foolish boy.

Cloud wanted to know more, I could see it, but he had learned that I do not yield when I do not wish it. Selfish, foolish and even arrogant at times… but not stupid. I often wondered if he would have cast himself blindly to Tifa If I had only not let my unfounded and long suppressed lust get the best of me in his moment of weakness. It had surprised me when he kept coming back—affirming his bisexuality. Affirming mine.

Don't get me wrong, he was a very masculine personality. Why he was so humble with me was beyond me. Maybe it was because I was so cruel to him the first time. Was it because I was older? No, it might have been that I had more experience.

And suddenly with a question on Cloud's sweet lips, Cid invaded my thoughts again. Had he found out anything about Cloud? Did he know we shared a similar scar, and would he use it against us?

Us? The thought of loyalty to anything but an idea sickened me these days. Lucrecia and Hojo showed me how stupid loyalty was. I didn't like the idea of "loyalty" to Cloud of all people in the slightest. Not in the romantic sense anyway.

"—tomorrow?" Cloud was saying.

"Hm?" I asked, returning from the dark murk of my thoughts.

"Are you coming with me tomorrow? Out near Corel."

"What's in Corel?"

"Some really good Materia I hear," he told me, leaning against the bedposts. "Frankly, I think we're lacking in that department. We're not ready for Sephiroth."

_Tell me Vincent… is my son alive?_

"Is Cid coming?" I found myself asking. What was wrong with me?

"Yeah." Duh, he was saying. We had a battling balance against the hostile monsters sprouting up around the globe. Why should we throw it off? Stupid question. "Why? He always comes."

"Of course," I agreed faintly. That was going to be awkward…

_Sephiroth is dead._  
"Are you alright?" Cloud asked, seeing my brow deepen.

I turned the question around. "Are _you_ alright?" He came here for something, no doubt. Best let the attention stay on his problems.

"You care… or something?"

Tricky. Touchy. He struck a sour note with that one. No, I really didn't, and he had picked up on it. His voice was soothing and hearing his pain gave me a cruel pride in my own self control that was set in steel. A selfish act on my part surely—letting him put himself down under the pretense of understanding to make myself feel even a little better. I suppose it made me a subconscious bully. Evil Vincent—manipulating and scheming under layer after layer of subterfuge. I was a horrible person—I wasn't even deserving of the title _person. Monster. Hateful monster._ I was just too ashamed to announce it.

"Answer me," I ordered. If Cloud had a weakness in _this_ room, it was most certainly my commands. I'm not sure if it was a turn on for him, or just his submissive streak shining through, but he absolutely obeyed my every whim once past the threshold if given in a firm and domineering tone. Idiot. I'm just as weak as you and yet you bend over backwards for me! You're too good for me, though why I can't say…

"Why do they even listen to me?" Cloud was saying, distressed in his own quiet little fury. "They know it all—you most of all. I'm… not a SOLDIER. I never was. I mean, are they just used to listening to me or something…?"

Was he talking to me when he opened up or was he talking to himself? My presence surely couldn't have made that much of a difference. Oh well. Cloud, be weak—let me drink in your foolishness that you hide to give me strength. Hideous, evil, monstrous Vincent, here to give you solace in my silence. You sorry boy…

My heart wasn't in it this evening. Cloud's confessions predictably led to an almost vampiric embrace, one touch led to another kiss and my body was swathed once again in a fire that had to be sated. I didn't want to face him, but I didn't feel like ordering him on his hands and knees. I was tired of playing. I couldn't even look at him when I fucked him, but I let him pull my hair and be violent under my caresses—he needed it to quell his confusion. I needed it to quiet my demons, so dangerously close to breaking that steel control I was so proud of in the daylight hours. Bodily ecstasy plowed them back, rocking into Cloud and bathing with the sick little delight each thrust sent me into.

He bit me hard in the shoulder and I came—for one blissful moment nothing existed but a shock of sudden pleasure to every inch of my body, from my toes to my fingertips. Then I came back to the real world, full of hurt, fatigue, tingling limbs and uncomfortable sheets.

Cloud needed to come.

I had half a mind to send him away without a second thought to his needs, but I grabbed his iron erection and pumped a fast and vocal release from him. I never let him stay before and despite the disappointed look he gave me I had no intentions of starting. Cold and cruel, like I always was, maybe in a weak attempt to shake him off. But the more abuse he came back for the more I was sucked into his pain, acting like a long needed anesthetic for my soul.

A quick cleanup followed by me handing Cloud his boots. At least he had learned to take them off at the door. It might have been rude, but it was nicer than saying, "Get the hell out."

In truth, it was Chaos I was worried about. The Specimen 9 (so titled for me?) videos from Hojo's despicable lair of pure undiluted hell had him stirring very close to the surface, very dangerously so. Stress weakened my control and though Cloud was a temporary escape, he ultimately made it worse. Chaos would easily rip him to shreds and paint his blood on the Highwind hulls. Blood… I could smell it in him pulsating through each capillary. I could smell it on my shoulder where he had bitten me.

_How could you let him, Lucrecia? How?_

Don't you dare tell me you understand anything, Vincent! This was MY choice!  
_  
WAS IT?_

I all but pushed him out the door. Any longer in his presence and my precarious control at the moment would snap under the thrashing beast under my mutilated body. Hojo… I was so immensely glad that I had and took the opportunity to rip him to pieces with his own handiwork, but it still tormented me and I couldn't afford to start killing the only group dumb enough to be out to save the Planet. No, no, no, get out of my head you abomination! Not here… not now…

"Vincent…" Cloud said suddenly.

I stopped the door mid-swing and looked him in the eye for the first time all night. He seemed a little miffed. "Apologies, Cloud. I am a sick man."

"Should this stop?"

Part of me wanted to say yes, and the other no. I wasn't sure what to say, so I found the truth leaking out.

"I fear for you, Cloud."

I'm not sure if I offended him or not—not too sure I cared. The minute the door was locked my stomach twisted and I wretched the vile substance that signaled Chaos' arrival. Anyone who had seen me knocked upside the head knew about Chaos though. Only Cid had an inkling of why he had come to be.

It was Cid that gnawed at my concrete control and wisp of a presence. He had only scratched the surface of me and it was more than enough to blackmail me. The bastard tormented me without even saying a word. It was his face I feared in my hell that night with Chaos on the prowl in Nibel.

End Chapter One

_weren't expecting it? I wasn't either, though I did mention Cloud in Beneath the Red… R/R plz! ^_^_


	3. Murderous Secret

Lamentations  
Chapter Two  
Murderous Secret

Nobody got up at a decent hour on this ship save a select few, myself included. Even if I had unwillingly been hunting as Chaos deep into the wee hours of the night, my internal clock roused me at 7:30 am, and no amount of tossing or turning could reverse the awakeness. So I resumed my fragmented reading of a book I'd read a thousand times on music theory. No one would bother me until at least nine.

The picture fluttered out of my book when I reached page 172.

And suddenly she was in my lap, staring up with the surprised smile that said to me what she had said years ago…

_You're taking my picture? *laughs* No, no, wait! That wasn't a good one, my glasses were crooked! Vincent, come back here, give me that thing! Vincent! Don't you dare develop that, I forbid it! Vincent!_

I could hear her voice as if she were beside me, wrestling for the disposable camera amid giggles and protests. She was beautiful, I assured her constantly. The most beautiful woman in the world, but she refused to believe it—not for a second did she think herself more than a nerdy lab-head.

My heart ached for her again. I still couldn't decide if I was still madly in love and so sorry for what Hojo did to her, or if I hated her bitterly for the mutual betrayal. Well, I still loved her otherwise I wouldn't still hurt after all these years, but even if I hated her, no one deserved what she had gone through…

_It was MY choice!_

He can't make you happy!

He won't make me cry!

I crumpled the picture and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and fell behind the laptop on the desk. My beloved siren, leading me unintentionally to my doom…

And at the thought of the laptop a sudden paranoia crept up onto me. I never trusted locks, as I was sure more than a few members of AVALANCHE could easily pick one. So I put a password on the folder I had copied onto the hard drive and put the disc I dragged up from the ShinRa mansion in the very back of the drawer. Not elaborate, but enough to satisfy my anxious tick.

Cloud was speaking with a crewmember about the next destination when I arrived on the deck. No one so much as turned their head to greet me—which was fine. Maybe it was childishly stereotypical for someone like myself to stick to the shadows, but I felt unwelcomely scrutinized in an observable position. Lucrecia had once called me shy. I called it avoiding unneeded attention. Turks were good at that (when they weren't hot-headed morons like Reno, that is).

Eventually Cloud looked around and frowned, still in leader-mode. All of his insecurities tucked underneath a veneer of organized thought; his confessions locked safely away within me. Loyal or not, I would never betray anybody's trust.

"Where's Cid? He was supposed to be here."

Each member of AVALANCHE gave a shrug or where they saw him last—the general consensus being him turning in early, bottle in hand. From what I knew about Cid, this was not typical. Perhaps I had frightened him. So far my attuned ears hadn't heard any whisperings of his findings, so maybe this was for the better.

It was Cloud who was non-verbally voted to go fish Cid out of whatever hole he'd put himself into. After a moment's hesitation, I followed. Curiosity? Reinforcement? Not even I was sure. But if I was going to put myself at risk for sake of defeating Lucrecia's son, it was only natural to make sure that the dynamic would continue to flow undisturbed. I had no time for anything otherwise.

It took two knocks to lure the pilot out of his drunken slumber, and he was quite disheveled as he answered. He had slept in his clothes and was quick to turn pale upon catching sight of me. Good. That meant that the game was over—I had won. Cid wouldn't be uttering a word as to what he had seen.

I felt disgusted with myself. Cid didn't deserve this kind of treatment from me. Yes, I was a monster. Manipulating without care or abandon. Hateful, monstrous Vincent.

Cid mumbled out an excuse not to come. I was undoubtedly the reason. He was scrutinizing me again. How I wish I had been more attentive in the ShinRa mansion basement! I wasn't sure if it wanted to curl up and die from humiliation or just really kill him.

But it was over. For now my hideous past was safe and I forced myself not to dwell on the matter. Cid surrendered most of his Materia and I thought nothing more of it.

Was it truly luck? I wasn't stupid enough to say something as foolish as fate, but I have to admit more than circumstance was at work that day.

Somebody forgot something—I can't say that I remember exactly what it was (more because I chose not to than trouble recalling). There was a long debate Cloud had over the PHS about who had what and where. Barret, did he have it? No, that thieving brat Yuffie took it from him. No, she let Tifa borrow it. I was tired of hearing it—I truly stopped caring once I figured this was going to take more than five minutes.

When the batteries went dead I almost got irritated. Between Could cursing and Nanaki complaining about his nose being dry, I'd had enough. This had nothing to do with Sephiroth—this didn't involve me. Lucrecia had called me focused to a fault once. I suppose she was right. I wasn't being impatient. I was just tired of it.

"I'll get it," I had finally sighed.

It was awkward—I loathe using my voice when I don't have to. It makes others uncomfortable, not to mention myself. There was a time when I never needed to speak, believing that I deserved the silence. In a way I still do. Perhaps that time will come again.

Cait Sith had it (whatever IT was)—stuffed god knows where in his remote plush body. Stiff words and a quick retreat on my part. I tend not to remember conversation unless it's important. At least until I needed to. If it were only that way with my damnable past…

I didn't think I was very lucky at the time. My door was open half an inch. That very second my throat seized. Someone was in my personal space. I had always been a territorial creature—which made what Hojo did to me an inexcusable violation to my person beyond any and all words. The scent of cigarettes made a few things very clear:

It was Cid.

He was _still there._

And suddenly my mind reeled in a swirl of anger and hatred.

I really did want to kill him. I didn't think I was capable of that level of hatred anymore now that Hojo was gone, but there it was, fueling me as I ripped Cid out of **my** chair, at **my** desk and had him pinned up against the wall. However temporary the location happened to be, it was still my space.

The videos were still playing on the laptop. He watched it all. Just like Hojo. I was going to crush his trachea for it. "No one… _no one _… has ever seen that footage… and lived to tell about it. Not a soul."

"Vince! Hold up! Wait!" he choked while he kicked under my grasp. "I just… wanted to know!"

"Knowledge has a price, Cid," I told him in a furiously calm tone. I really was going to kill him. The consequences of such an action escaped me at that moment. I couldn't even look at him I was so unfathomably angry. I was NOT in a position to put up with any more intrusions; my nightmares were mine alone and their origins as well. I was in disbelief that he actually had the balls to go into my room, hack into my hard drive and help himself to my insanity.

"You won't kill me! You can't!"

"Oh? Why is that?" I growled silkily, tightening my claw near fatally against his throat.

"Because… you're… still human!"

My anger faltered with the word _human_. Didn't he see the monster I had turned into? Didn't he know that someone with that kind of horror lurking underneath their skin couldn't possibly be human? He saw… and… he didn't realize?

My grip slackened. "What… did you just say?" I asked him, looking him hard in the eye.

"I saw it!" he gasped, still kicking weakly. Without Materia he was just like the rest of them—just another guy. "I'm no shrink, but I know somethin' about pain! You're still in there, I swear to fucking god!"

He dropped to the floor when I withdrew, coughing and choking on the injury I'd inflicted upon him. He who invaded and violated claims understanding? That can't be right. No, he must have mistaken suffering for humanity. There was so much more to it that was beyond my grasp that he took for granted every day…

"You're too close," I said aloud, not really aiming the statement in any particular direction.

"I meant what I said," Cid managed as he rose to his feet. "You wouldn't have kept it otherwise."

_What?_

From his awkward slouch with his hands stuffed in his pockets, I'd say he was just spouting nonsense. But out of his pocket came my crumpled bookmarker—Lucrecia, looking up in surprise with her almost luminous eyes and long cinnamon ringlets of hair. I had it in my hand in a moment, wondering… why _didn't_ I throw this out? surely there was something else I could use to remind myself what page I had been on. I suddenly wanted to tear it up, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Cid couldn't be right though. "I _was_ going to throw this out…" I mused quietly.

Cid mumbled some half-assed apology and was halfway out the door before I realized it. I grabbed his arm, internally panicking. _What if he talks?_ "You don't understand the seriousness of what you have seen. You can't say anything."

"I'm not gonna—"

"Highwind, I'm serious."

Perhaps he took offense in my lack of faith in him. But it goes unsaid; I broke the first of the Turk Ten Commandments (as we used to call the strict code of conduct among us) with Lucrecia and had paid dearly for it: _Trust no one. _I wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.

"I get it. You'll do worse to me than kill me," Cid said with a shrug, surprisingly very calm about the whole situation. "I'm sure you're damn well capable of it."

So honest. I wanted to weep I craved his honesty about who he was so badly. And here I was threatening the man. Monstrous Vincent strikes again. I was so ashamed. "So it comes to a threat then…"

"Frankly, I don't blame you."

_How could you not? _How can I explain? "It never used to be that way…" I said after a moment. "I wasn't a monster then." No, that couldn't make much sense to him…

"Never said you were," Cid said with a half smirk and another shrug. "Never said you are."

Cid wasn't stupid. He was forcing niceties out, I was positive. That kind of behavior had always annoyed me. The ass was not a place to speak from. "Are you trying to comfort me?" I accused. _As if you could make a difference…_

Cid held his shrug mid-shoulder. "If you're willing, I guess so. I mean—,"

'I guess so?' _I am not a piece of machinery to be brought back to life! _Typical mechanic! "Do you honestly think it's that easy?" I hissed at him. "How could you? How could I?" Too close… back off… "It would be pointless."

Cid thought for a minute, then dug around in his pocket for a moment. Pieces of a long crushed cigarette fluttered onto the floor along with some lint and a straw wrapper. God, I was irritated with him enough… I guess I was just a stickler for cleanliness.

He brought forth an amber orb—a command Materia, though which I couldn't really tell. "You don't have to say anything, Vince," he said, offering it to me. "But I'm not forcing you to do anything, got it?"

I accepted it slowly. Upon contact there was a brief glimpse into his thoughts. Pity. I was pity and not fear that drove him. This was the Sense Materia. I wasn't sure if I liked either motivational factor, because if there was one thing I hated more than being feared, it was being pitied.

_Vincent I'm so sorry…!_

Stop apologizing, Lucrecia! I don't want your fucking pity! 

"Get out," I told him sternly. He obeyed with more zeal than Cloud could have given, taking off at a practical sprint. I tossed the orb next to my other equipment in disdain. No, I will not accept your pity, Cid.

Then a though struck me. Why pity and not fear? Why would he want to even try and help me? As mislead as his attempt was, it was a first. Cloud used me to help himself and I was fine with that. He knew that if he so much as tried to offer me advice it would end between us—and quickly. But Cid…there was something that was unabashedly frank in his offer of at least an ear to listen. That made me pause. Surely it wasn't just pity. Anyone else who knew they were in the presence of a wild monster would surely flee for their lives.

But I could barely put two sentences together aloud. Some days I didn't even need to open my mouth save to eat perhaps, and I considered those days blessings. How could I tell Cid—Materia or no Materia—exactly what happened to me all those years ago and why? Would it bring me to some emotional epiphany of sorts? I think not.

Suppose everything went perfectly? What then? Would we be something as foolish as friends? Friend. Such a strange word. Members of AVALANCHE were my allies… but I couldn't say they were my friends.

My mind went into auto-Turk. This was a psychological trap. This was going to end in blackmail. In threats. In blood. Trust no one.

Cid was going to have to die.

End of Chapter Two  
**********************************************


	4. My Blackest Hour

Lamentations  
Chapter Three  
My Blackest Hour

Guns didn't have names to me anymore. Not the ones they came with anyway. AK .47, Glock .17 … no, not these names. Numbers only mattered when I needed more ammunition; size was instinct to me. Names like Peacemaker and Quicksilver mattered.

Didn't need a long range like my sniper SR… Death Penalty was overkill. The Lariat would do nicely. With a silencer of course. And a mastered Ice Materia, just in case things got out of hand. _Never underestimate thy enemy_; another cardinal Turk Commandment. One I never broke, and never will.

The corridors were stifling with the muggy dark that roamed between the doors, catwalks, hatches and bulkheads of the Highwind. The crew handled the ship well enough without him. One less man in the world would only make a temporary and insignificant ripple. Chaos agreed.

Cid's door was unlocked. So trusting… so unfathomably foolish. Even among allies… well, not everyone received the cold punishment of ShinRa's training regimen I suppose. I eased it open and slipped inside.

Snoring. Loudly. An occasional mumble or a twitch. He was even half off his bed, sprawled muscular limbs waving at some dream—batting away imagined demons half sluggishly. Pathetic.

I aimed at his head. Point blank shot. His head would have been bloody clumps of brain and bone smeared all over his pillow if it weren't for what he mumbled that instant.

"He's… beneath the red…"

My aim wavered. It could have been just awkward coincidence that the tattered cloak the kept me sheltered was _red… If you must trust, trust only thy instincts_ Another commandment. Cid, you fool… you were _dreaming_ about me?

Yes, the Sense Materia still nestled next to the mastered Ice told me so. About the tapes. About my demons. They plagued _him_ now as well.

He jerked up in a daze. My gun was back in its holster in a moment. Damn my futile curiosity. It took a moment for him to realize I was there, and when he did the shock nearly launched him a foot off the bed.

"Sweet mother-fucking Mary on ecstasy, what the FUCK is wrong with you?"

I almost smirked. His instincts were dead on—he'd have made a decent Turk given the right training. It's a pity he never followed his first impression. "I told you I was a monster," I reminded him.

Cid caught his breath. "Don't be stupid, I … just didn't recognize you…" he mumbled gruffly. "Without your cloak you're…"

His voice faltered. _You really are a monster… You're a fake…_"I'm what?" I prodded, curious to see what politically correct insult he could muster.

"Ah…" Cid mumbled. "Nothin'…"

He's either too polite to say or too dumbfounded to piece it together. It was hard to say which because Cid was really neither polite nor stupid. "A freak, I know,"

Cid almost laughed. He reached for a cigarette on the nightstand. An instinctual motion obviously; he did it without even looking. "You didn't come here to beat up on yourself, did you?" he asked.

Awkward. And odd. Now that he initial shock had passed, he didn't seem uncomfortable in the slightest in my presence. As if it were perfectly okay to have a cigarette while a monster was sitting on the edge of your bed. What was Cid trying to prove?

Nothing. The sense Materia told me. Just the intense curiosity and even an unsteady affection from afar. He wanted friendship perhaps? Let's see how he likes the abomination that I REALLY was… Besides, I couldn't sit here forever in silence.

"Don't make me regret this…" I told him, tossing the yellow orb his way. It was warm and sweaty from my restless thumb roving over it repeatedly. Cid caught it and our consciousnesses collided, mine a storm cloud trampling over his daily apathy and pet peeves.

I'm not sure how much he processed. I gave him the full brunt of my pain, my hatred and my suffering. It was so much that maybe it was just a jumble. It was all a jumble to me, and startlingly accurate.

_Nothing's changed… The senate is still corrupt and the emperor remains insane…_

"You listen to me, Vincent Valentine! You are a NOTHING now! You belong to ME! Don't you look away from me, or I'll do what I did yesterday, you piece of shit!"

Hojo kicked me in the chest and I crumpled under the constant abuse, drained and utterly hollow. My hands were tied, my feet were bound and I could do nothing but just take it I was so damnably exhausted… take it as he raped me with random phallic objects and shoved things best not spoken down my throat. Hate, hate, HATE! I'll kill you someday for doing this to me! "I'll tear your heart out and EAT it fucker! Not her! Not anyone!"

A franticness that hovered in the deepest recesses of my mind tumbled out into full view: My weaknesses, my fears…my incoherencies…

"This was MY choice, Vincent! You don't have the right to condemn me for it!"

"What about US, Lucrecia? That didn't mean anything to you? You're a liar and a WHORE! With HOJO of all people!"

"Get away from me!"

_There is no place to run … all the nightmares and all the monsters… all the monsters they come alive! _"Okay… okay, I'm sorry Lucrecia, come back inside, I didn't mean to yell… We can… laugh a little…"

_**BURN! **_

"—die a little…"

Chaos would rip out of my skin and consume her if I let it. But I loved her too deeply. If that's what would make her happy, then… But it's HER blood it wants, and it's HER entrails it wants to devour. It can smell her out, hunt her down and shred her pale trembling flesh into bloody tatters…

"Only you, Vincent… you, you, you…"

_Filthy…beautifully filthy…_ "Not you… not you, not you, NOT YOU!"

_Is this what you dream?_ Cid thought in horror. _This is what torments you?_

_Hojo is dead but he lives in the throbbing illness of my memory… he decays but his scars remain._

No… enough…!

The real world snapped back into place. Cid flinched as if he had suffered injury, sending the Sense Materia rolling. "Dear **GOD**, what the FUCK was that shit?"

I retrieved the orb and unconsciously started to run the fingers of my good hand over it again. "That was me," I told him. "Do you understand now? My punishment cannot be expressed by meager words. You see now. I can't possibly be human."

The expression on his face said it all. He was pale and sweating; I could hear his heart pounding from here. I had scared him badly, and it had served him right to want to get that close to a wild animal like myself and Chaos. He wanted me? There. He had a piece of my charred and rotting soul. I hoped it haunted him for eternity for invading my privacy in the first place.

"What could you have POSSIBLY done to deserve THAT?" he demanded after regaining his composure.

"I allowed her to die. I let a madman do the same to many. It's only fitting," I explained with a shrug. What else do you _want?_

Silence.

"I… dunno what to say," he finally managed, putting his ruined cigarette out (probably from clenching his teeth onto it). He had a hand to his chest, perhaps to steady his adrenaline saturated system.

"I didn't think so," I said, rising to leave.

"Vince, hold up!"

The urgency in Cid's voice made me pause, leaving my hand lingering on the bed post. Had he come up with something pathetically profound to say? I turned to see. He had jumped to his knees to try and stop me from leaving. He hesitated.

_Out with it man… words rarely offend me anymore…_

No words. He had cast aside his doubts and very suddenly thrust himself forward into me, initiating a shamelessly lustful kiss.

I tensed. Advances were mostly unwelcome on my part. Cid had snuck into where I dwelt, he had a look into my deepest nightmares and now he was worming his way into my intimate space as well? I should have shot him!

But the kiss was so warm and brutally honest—I WANT YOU he was saying, without fear. It was an honesty Cloud had never offered; he was lying to himself when we embraced.

No one had ever been that honest with me.

I found myself wanting more, drinking in the humanity that Cid was offering with his hot lips and scruffy but tender closeness. I didn't even realized how hard I was until Cid fumbled in the dark to relieve me of my belt. Oh I wanted him—I wanted him to want me. I couldn't decide if I wanted to fuck or be fucked by him, _you delicious being…_

But no. Nothing could possibly be this easy. Besides, one lover was hard enough to conceal. Loyalty scared me, and Chaos was itching to bite Cid's face off.

I broke away and made a quick exit, determined to keep Cid at arms length. What was unexpectedly a void in my pain had startled me—what had Cid done? It was an alien sensation, but seemed familiar in a long buried way…

Cid's true intentions were sexual it seemed. And though I was tempted, I would not bite his lure.

But for now… he could live.

End Chapter Three

_There are pieces of Vincent's memory I'm still pounding out, but there's more… oh so much more *evil laugh* lol _


	5. Everyone's Secrets

Lamentations  
Chapter Four  
Everyone's Secrets

It can be said that I know a good deal about my allies without them knowing a thing about me. They know the way I normally behave and don't ask questions—directly to me anyway. It's not that I go out of my way to know things… knowledge just accumulates in my almost mechanical memory and sits, waiting to be used. I pay close attention to my surroundings, and sometimes it is more of a burden than an asset.

I could have blackmailed every single one of them if I really wanted to. I knew almost everything there was to know about Cloud. Everyone knew that Tifa was in love with Cloud, but I'm not sure how many knew of her weakness to chocolate syrup strait out of the bottle, despite her impeccable attention to eating and acting healthy. That and she cried herself to sleep most nights.

Barret had struggled with steroids in his youth, a fact I heard him argue at Corel with the Huge Materia incident. Nanaki had a bad case of fleas but was too ashamed to ask for help. Yuffie was harboring a small crush for Tifa of all people, and thought her breasts were too small. I saw her through her cracked open door unintentionally, naked in front of a mirror, pinching her tiny nipples with a disapproving frown. "Fucking A-cups…" she was muttering.

I knew Cait Sith was manned by a Turk as soon as I heard him say, "Kissing ass'll only get you so far. But _kicking_ ass…." It was one of the Turk Commandments he'd spouted. He must not have realized that there was an ex-Turk within their midst. I didn't say anything at the time—after all I was only along for the ride until Hojo was dead, right?

Now as for Cid, I only had minimal information—mostly because he was so damn honest about his flaws. Besides his almost frightening love and obsession for the Dukes of Hazard, he remained unscathed in my book despite the fact that he seemed most likely among us (besides myself) to have a dirty secret.

Imagine my discomfort in him knowing so much about me, if only in abstract bits and pieces. And though he was by no means innocent, he was human and perfectly flawed. The fact that he had seen the black madness of my past and repentance mad me feel that I had dirtied his humanity in some way. He was quiet lately—unusually so. Perhaps it was another thin film of guilt draped over my existence that caused me to seek him out on the Highwind deck. I had learned a hard lesson in my long sleep: act now, before it's too late.

Cid was smoking like he always was, hunched over the railing and letting the night wind whip his hair and jacket around. What would a man like him be thinking at about four in the morning? It was deep, whatever it was. His hard blue eyes were on the ground some couple thousand feet below. He hadn't shaved in a few days so it was hard to tell if he were trying to grow something or if he was just being lazy. His lips reminded me of that kiss he stole a few nights ago, and all the dreams and fantasies that had come alive attached to it.

Cid turned after a minute, no longer startled by my silent presence. "Hey," he greeted with a half smile.

"I believe I owe you an apology," I told him, not moving. I found myself craving his lips again. The mix of nicotine, skin and just _him_ in that fleeting taste was driving me insane. But self control was a strong point of mine, so I kept my posture slack and detached.

"Huh?" He asked. "The hell for?"

Trust a mechanic to make things difficult… I tried to make it sound as politically correct as I could. "You were exposed to something… rather…" Humiliating? Disgusting? Beyond all light of hope? "…traumatizing. I feel that I have… contaminated you in some way. Please forgive me."

When Cid started to laugh I thought that perhaps I had stuttered and he had found it funny. But then I wasn't sure what he was chuckling about. "Christ, Vince! Why do you blame yourself for the stupidest shit? I offered, remember?"

I leaned over on the railing next to him and almost smiled in a fond memory of Lucrecia. One of the few that were warm in the brief happiness that we had…

_Why Vincent?_

What?

Why not Vince or Vinny? Everyone else calls you Mr. Valentine.

This is ShinRa, Lucrecia.

I could call you ViVi *giggle*

You wouldn't …

Sure I would!

Alright, if I can call you Lelou…

Oh, stop that! ^_^

"I suppose," I agreed after a minute. But I had to wonder… if he truly knew what horrors were coming that night, why would he be willing to bring that onto himself?

"Hey Vince?" Cid was asking me, snapping me out of my reverie.

"Hm?"

"What does… 'the senate is still corrupt and the emperor remains insane,' mean?"

So he had picked up on that then. What a strange experience he must have had. If I had been a man of lesser self-control, I'm sure I'd have been labeled stark raving mad. A begrudging gratefulness to Cid was forming for not uttering a word, like I had asked.  
"It's a metaphor to ShinRa I suppose," I explained. Damn my poetic mind.

"Huh. Creepy, but accurate."

So that was the label he came up with? Creepy? Sometimes I envied a simple mind. "You think I'm creepy," I repeated. Would Cid bed a "creepy" man? Well, I didn't think that he had any homosexual tendencies until recently. Perhaps he would surprise me.

Cid was smirking. "In a good way," he assured. "Life really isn't all that bad, you know? It's not all sorrow, though sometimes it kinda seems that way…" he pointed to the ball of fire in the sky that made it not quite night. "—like that big fireball in the sky. That's depressing enough. The past _is_ important, but it's over. There comes a point where we all just need to move on… you know?"

Move on? Stop suffering? Alien notions. And selfish ones at that. Lucrecia died full of pain, hatred and sorrow—all because of me. I didn't have the tiniest RIGHT to be happy. "Is healing even possible at that point?" I muttered in no particular direction.

"For sure," Cid immediately offered. "Never said it was gonna be easy, speedy or pretty. But definitely possible. I'm not gonna be the one to tell you what to do though. It ain't my place."

That honesty—something I'd never had before—was the object of my desire suddenly, housed in someone as simple as Cid. I wanted him all over again. I wanted to push him down on the floor and devour him; drown him in myself and all my taint. I felt blood rush to my face in this crazy desire to defile him.

But not here.

"Do you…?" I started, but the request died on my lips. How could I be that selfish? To saturate Cid with myself would be his death warrant. No, I wouldn't be responsible for _two_ deaths of that nature.

"What?" Cid asked after a minute of waiting.

I backed away, ashamed of my lust for him. "Nothing. Nothing worthy of anything…" Cloud was a sensitive soul on a deeper level. Yuffie calling him an asshole was a mosquito bite. My betrayal (though no promises were made) would be a drop kick to the head.

As I was turning to leave I felt his fingers weave through my long hair. The contact gave me goosebumps. The fact that he even wanted me at all proved him naïve, but all the more desirable. His lips… I had to have one more taste…

I whipped around and caught his mouth, devouring it by exploring every taste and shudder; savoring every fleeting second. My desire sprang to life and as Cid clumsily pulled us closer, my pain parted with that strange void again. It was as if I could have just a few moments of erotic bliss with him, I could be a happy man…

No. Not for me.

I yanked myself away and refused to look at him. Self control… ABSOLUTE self control to resist his temptation! I made my way off deck… this couldn't be happening.

My second step was interrupted by a tug on the tattered red cloak that I just didn't have the heart to throw away. It was Cid, with a fistful of the cloth clenched in his fist, looking angry and confused.

"Dammit, Vince! Why d'you keep DOING that?"

_Now you've done it, Valentine! He's expecting something now…_ I couldn't give in though, as much as I wanted to. I could have fessed up about Cloud to get out of this easily, but that would be a major breach in confidence. Despite my indifference towards whatever "relationship" we had, I wouldn't with the betrayal of trust on anyone save Hojo. No, best to be vague.

I took Cid's hand in mine and traced the lines in it with my thumb, more to ease my tension than his. "Your dreams, Cid. Didn't they come true?"

Cid tentatively took his hand back, flexing his fingers to shake off the shiver I saw run up his arm. "I… yeah. You were there…"

The rocket. I can't say that I'd really had a wonderful time as we spiraled in space—in fact it had made me quiet queasy. But I had seen Cid in a fog of awe and wonder, cursing in his revelry of the moment. That had been the instant his dream came to life.

I nodded. "What stopped you before?"

"Uh… circumstance, I guess," he muttered.

Close enough. "Ah. Circumstance. Then you have your answer."

End Chapter Four  
*********************************************


	6. Bloody Secret

Lamentations  
Chapter Five  
Bloody Secret

_It's been a long time…_

No. No, you don't exist…

_I'm real. Real as that girl you killed last week in Nibel…_

I killed no one but myself.

_You would be that selfish… Shall I show you? _

Get out!

Blood splatters were all over—down my chest, neck and mouth…all over my face and throat… tearing the fragile little thing into several pieces with one _crunch!_ of her spine… a gurgled scream…

Dead, blank eyes, covered in blood.

Her face was … Lucrecia?

"NO!"

I sat strait up in a cold sweat, not remembering where I was for a moment. This wasn't the ShinRa mansion… no, no this was the Highwind, that's right. I shuddered in cold and wrapped a sheet around my bony shoulders. So cold… the edges were torn… that meant Chaos had been out in my sleep. The thought chilled me sometimes. It spoke for me… did things I didn't want it to do…How long had I been asleep for? I wiped the hair out of my face. Burning hot; a fever. I was sick. Sick from what? I never got sick. Had Hojo destroyed my immune system to get one last laugh out of my tormented existence?

That girl…there was a vague memory of tearing something to shreds with gnashing teeth, but it was so unclear. God, what was I doing here? Once Hojo was dead I should have crawled strait back into that coffin, where I belonged. No innocence would be dismembered on my account then.

A knock on the door sent me into an undue state of panic. Had there been knocks before? Had Chaos said anything? I couldn't remember. I hoped not. "Vince? Come on, you've been in there for days!" Days? Had it been days? Did it matter? Goddammit, I was so cold…

"Go away…" I managed to whoever it was. Cloud. Or maybe Cid, I was sure, but which it was I was not. Everything had a sickening fog about it. I felt like I was going to vomit, but I didn't dare. Chaos was so close I could feel the change inching up my spine. This curse… this lycanthrope was getting too far out of hand.

"I'll break down this door man, I'm fucking serious!"

Cid. He couldn't see me like this—I most certainly wouldn't let even Cloud see me in this advanced state of patheticness I happened to be in. Though I was rather surprised he even bothered to seek me out…

I pulled myself to my feet, staggered to the door and locked it (unlocked? Not good…). I heard a _thump_—Cid's head hitting the door. A sigh, then he walked away. It was cold, but for the best. I had gone from wanting him dead to desperately trying to keep him alive. Maybe it was that shred of hope in me that someday when things weren't so complicated… I shivered again… so cold… my skin was crawling with its wanting to shift into Chaos. I mustn't give in…no more innocent lives could sully these hands….

I leaned on the desk for support, cursing my dizziness. Turks weren't supposed to be weak… _what was wrong with me? _The laptop came to life when I bumped it, screensaver vanquished. The Specimen 9 videos… it would be grueling to watch and relive, but there might be answers hidden in Hojo's sick attempt at playing God.

### ########## ###### ### # ### # # #

"Subject Specimen 9, October 2nd, test two-hundred and ninety-two. Subject has been restrained due to violent spasms and unpredictable transformations."

A heavy door opened, spilling light into a tiny room with a slumped bundle of black hair and straitjacket in a corner. It twitched, awoken from its fitful slumber. Myself.

Hojo rolled in a tray of various tools, not all of which were medical. "How are you feeling today, Vincent?"

The thing in the corner let out a low growl. It didn't even sound human anymore given the way it held the sound in the back of its throat.

"Uh-hmn," Hojo agreed with a smirk, filling a syringe with cc's of… _something…_ "Same as yesterday, I see. Well… no matter." He turned and reached down for the wild thing in the corner. As soon as he took a step towards it, it hissed, then bore its fangs in threat. When Hojo showed no signs of backing away it thrashed in its corner, then let out a blood-chilling howl, ripping out of its restraints and crawling up the wall with arms that were gaining muscle and changing color by the second.

It pounced onto Hojo, but he only stabbed the needle into the animal's chest. It sort of stumbled awkwardly, groaned and shrank back into a bony and abused man that fell to his knees. Hojo caught him, ripped the syringe out and threw him face first over the tray, sending all manner of things clattering. The man was now twitching with the drug, shamefully naked and exposed. "That's NOT how we say _hello_ Vincent!" Hojo scolded wildly, retrieving something phallic looking from the mess scattered on the floor. He spread the poor creature's pale trembling buttocks and forced the object in, prying a helpless little moan from him.

I flinched. My photographic memory—curse it being so accurate on my account and not Chaos'!—wouldn't allow me to forget such a trauma, drugged or not. Seeing it from the camera in the corner's point of view made it that much more despicable. I shivered again. It had taken years—how many I wasn't sure because they all seemed to meld together—for Hojo to make me cry an ounce. And he had been the only man who had.

"Hold still!" he was barking at the pitiable thing, spasming limply and silently letting tears escape. Weak… so goddamned weak. Hojo kicked it in the ribs and unzipped his pants.

I rewound and zoomed in on the syringe. What was _that_ in particular? Whatever it was, Hojo had used it to control me. Some kind of tranquilizer, perhaps? I couldn't tell due to the poor quality of the picture.

_You liked it…_

"Get out!" I snarled, stumbling into the door. "You are not welcome here!"

_You LOVED the way he fucked you! Every cut, every bruise—_

"Shut UP!"

_Every scream, every kick! _

I staggered for my equipment. Something—_anything! _—to quell the vile beast within my reach! Ethers, hypers… tranquilizers. A temporary fix I was sure, but it might foil Chaos' attempt to take over and go on another killing spree.

They were pretty green pills. I barely had time for a small flash of Lucrecia into my thoughts; of all the drugs she forced herself through for Hojo's sake. Sick, haggard and frail when I saw her last… I swallowed six and tried to keep them down, clenching the desk chair as my shoulders heaved in restraint.

_It won't save you! She couldn't, and he won't either! Don't kid yourself! _

"You are only real when I allow you to be!" I coughed, gritting my teeth. No, Cid wouldn't save me. Not even in the deepest recesses of my darkest fantasies of him did I dare fool myself into thinking that. I stumbled, knocking my scattered equipment to the floor and barely finding the bedpost to stop my fall in time. _This is just a phase_ I kept telling myself. _This cannot last…_

I fell face first into the pillow and kept falling and falling into a cold black oblivion that seemed to cycle forever. And into the arms of a small pregnant woman, dressed in her blue and white parka for the winter, all covered with blood…

"I've got you," she whispered, holding me close to the squirming infant inside.

"No… no, no, no…" I told her, tensing. I remembered. She was the first innocent I had allowed Chaos to sunder; I was so blatantly responsible for her death. She was different. I had taken dozens—maybe hundreds—of lives in the name of ShinRa, but I wanted none of the Turks anymore. This was of my own actions, controlled or not, and I hadn't even known her name. Her face was engrained into my memory though, just like everything else I came across. _Just give me peace! I didn't intend for you and your unborn son to be dead! You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time… _my first escape from the forgotten basement going horribly, horribly wrong…

"Feel my belly," she said softly and warmly into my ear. "He's kicking."

I pushed her away with as much force as I could manage to see half her face torn off, skin still dangling in bloody tatters in her tangled blond hair and draped across the fur of her nice warm parka, soiled and absolutely ruined. Something hideous and vengeful burst from her full abdomen and leapt at me, with a paralyzing shriek.

"STOP!" I shouted, squeezing my eyes shut as if I were a child. I had no control here—everything was beyond my reach and determined to uproot every horrifying experience I had just to play it back ten times worse! It made me so furious—why so weak? Why so pathetic? Nothing made sense here, it was all a jumble of blood, screams and glorified rape.

Lucrecia was crying. I heard her down an endless hall in a door I just couldn't seem to reach no matter how fast I ran or which corner I took. Weeping, sobbing and wailing in pain… good lord woman, if only I could have spared you that! When I at last reached the door and burst in to scoop her up in my arms she started to crumble into dust. The more I tried to sooth her, the more she cried, and thus the more she withered away, until I was grasping ash and dirt.

_This is a nightmare… a drug induced nightmare, you idiot! Get up! GET UP! _

"Lucrecia!" I called, sitting up suddenly. A nightmare indeed. Just a nightmare, but this wasn't the coffin Hojo had damned me to, and so I saw fit to adhere. This was the Highwind, just as it had been for the past month. I wasn't Chaos, I was Vincent Valentine, like I had been for the same amount of time, a little longer. _Don't be so pathetic, get yourself together you fuck-off… _

And then I saw him.

I thought I was dreaming still at first, but the cramp in my shoulder told me otherwise. Cid. Cid was standing at the foot of my bed, disc in hand, frozen in surprise at my waking. How he got in or why he would even bother escaped me. _Cid! Fucking Cid!_

Traitor! 

End Chapter Five

_I think that Vincent would be angry, not sappy, about what happened to him, and I love reading fics when he doesn't get all teary-eyed. Out of respect for his character, I write that way as well. Thank you very much for sticking with me so far! I think those of you that red Beneath the Red know what's coming next! XD_


	7. Shared Secret?

Lamentations  
Chapter Six  
Shared Secret?

A hundred questions hit me all at once, but I was too enraged to care. Perhaps some of these tumbled out of my lips, but most probably incoherently. Twice! Twice he had invaded my personal space! It was instinct to lunge for him. He was too quick for my leaden attack—I was still fuzzy from all the tranquilizers. Cid darted out of reach and threw the disc against the wall—shattering it to pieces.

It was just enough of a distraction for him to get my claw in a firm grip of his jacket. Still a little disoriented, I just flipped him onto the bed, not sure how much pressure I was applying. Enough to make him choke—he was holding me back with both arms. He was stronger than I gave him credit for, but this curse from Hojo proved useful for once, driving him mercilessly into the mattress. I wanted him dead again.

I had neither the patience nor the focus to think up anything elaborate to say. I also lacked the self containment I usually had at the moment. "You idiot! What did you think you were accomplishing!"

"I… wanted to help!" he grunted, struggling to get me off.

I didn't give an inch. "What made you THINK—,"

Cid forced the claw back enough to take a deep breath. "If you wanna kill yourself go jump off the deck, don't do it here—rotting like a piece of shit! Meteor would get you first you selfish bastard!" he shouted angrily, tensing to kick me. I got into a defensive position instinctively. "I'm doing you a favor! So go ahead, kill me—you won't get a chance to thank me later, fucker!"

I didn't budge, but I didn't keep suffocating him either. Did he think I was _that_ pathetic? To mope around like a depressed teenager? He must have watched me dream and decided that I wasn't worth even fucking. Which in a sense was true. …_Unworthy…_ Those thoughts and desires I played with in the back of my mind deep into the dregs of sexuality I deemed unworthy. To be used by Cloud would be my sexual fulfillment. A wretched way to get off, but deserving none the less.

Cid's face went from angry to slack, then a smirk grew and his chest began to heave slightly. He was laughing. At me? Was it _that_ ridiculous? "Heh heh…I'm getting déjà vu, aren't you Vince?" he chuckled gruffly.

Yes, I had done this before—when he first _tried to help. _Why was he so convinced that I needed help?

But I did need help. I was caged in by Chaos in a corner and plagued by either nightmares or insomnia. It was so obvious that Cid had picked up on it—had anyone else? The shock of it caused me to withdraw. Denying fault would only make me weaker—which among all of my demons was my greatest fear.

"You're right… I'm a fool…" I drew into myself and shivered again. Still cold… I hadn't realized it though the layer of cotton on my perception the drugs drearily cast on me. I wasn't wearing a shirt…where did I put it? God, who cared? Cid was seeing the worst of me and it was humiliating. He knew too damn much, and I couldn't kill him now if I tried, not like this. I'm not sure I even had the energy to _want_ to anymore.

"Hey, don't kick yourself, It's just a disc…" Cid was saying, sitting up and rubbing the bruise that I'd given him. _Just a disc? _It was everything that made me as wretched as I was! As vile as it was, that was a despicable part of my life that is as inerasable as it was horrifying! _How could you say that? _Cid caught the look and sighed. "Vince…You gotta put a stop to this shit. What happened to healing?"

Healing? Yes, he mentioned something about healing before, didn't he? I thought of Lucrecia melting to ash in my arms. Healing? Lucrecia never got to heal. "My punishment is not finished—"

"Oh come off that shit!" Cid snapped suddenly. His aggressive tone startled me. He was always barking out orders to his crewmembers, but had never been that way with AVALANCHE members, least of all to me. "You're just cramming that bull 'cause you're too pussy to let it go! Be a man, dammit! Stop crying over a chick that's long gone, deal with the fact that you were taken advantage of and concentrate on what's under your nose! Jesus Christ!"

Dead on. I felt like he had punched me in the gut. It must have shown because Cid bit his tongue and moved to maybe comfort me. I pushed him away, with any muttered apology he could come up with. Of course he was right, but my old desire for him was reawakening, and I still had an unreasonable fear of tainting him somehow.

I regained my composure after a few breaths. "I… don't think it was right of you to act so rashly without my permission…" I told him. "But…" The words were jumbled in my head from the buzz I still had. My carefully planned words… and my anger—still fresh but not so sharp—were slipping out of my grasp.

"_But…"_ Cid prodded.

I wanted to glare at him, but I reorganized my sentence instead. "You're right. I should be thanking you." When was the last time I sincerely thanked someone? Aerith perhaps, for her kindness in lack of prejudice. And before that… maybe Lucrecia…

I watched carefully for his reaction. It wasn't what he was expecting at all. His eyebrows rose in a quizzical manner and his lips parted with surprise.

He had shaved recently, but not this morning it seemed. He _was_ trying to grow something—a blond ragged soul patch sat between his bottom lip and his chin, perched on a sturdy neck and very broad shoulders. I wanted him again, from his uncombed hair, to his ragged jeans… and…

"Shoes," I reminded him, as they were so offensively mingling with my sheets. I couldn't truly be annoyed—he had never been _invited_ to my quarters before, but god I hated it when someone didn't take their shoes off at the door. It was my Wutain mother I think, grinding that into my head since I could walk.

"Huh?" Cid hadn't caught my drift. He was staring at me like I was crazy—which I debatably was—with his cigarette hanging off his lip. Those lips…

"Your shoes," I said again, taming my desire for his rough hardened body. My head was swimming and I was getting hard. Thank god for those sheets. "I don't like them on my sheets."

"Oh," he said in understanding. He sort of sat there in indecision for a second, like he couldn't figure out what I was asking him to do. Then he yanked at his tattered laces and pulled those shoes off. They fell to the floor with a _clump!_ And like an afterthought as if to make himself more comfortable for a longer stay, his socks and jacket followed. Oh you tease… "Happy?"

I almost scoffed at the word. No, but perhaps a little more at ease. The cigarette hanging off his lip was driving me up the wall. I wanted full view of that which he taunted me with. I plucked it from his mouth, leaned over him and extinguished it on the bed post. He tensed—I could feel the hot quiver, we were so close. How does it feel to be teased with that you desire most? I almost wished I had that Sense Materia so I could catch his thoughts. Surely from his uncomfortable poise it had to be sexual.

Cid it seems has much less self control than I do. He gave in almost immediately, throwing me back into the mattress and giving me every taste I'd dreamed of in those lips of his. By the time he crumpled cigarette hit the floor he had me pinned, and I did nothing to stop him. My head was swimming again with how much I wanted him, how excited my bodily reaction was and those drugs… blowing away any precaution or rejection I might have spat had I been in the right mind.

I couldn't help it. I hadn't seen Cloud in almost a week and I was so starved for anyone to accept my ill-founded desire. I planted the hideous claw into the sheets so I wouldn't be tempted to unintentionally harm in my lustful fog and dragged Cid into my by his wife-beater shirt, loving every inch of his wild and impatient tongue scouring me, his hard on grinding against mine, escalating into spiraling heights.

Cid did no fumbling this time in the removal of my belt. There was no sense in hiding it now—my arousal sprang out to greet him and down he came, swallowing me whole and catching my next breath into a gasp. To feel those lips and that tongue against the most sensitive of flesh…engulfing and receding like a long awaited tide after an impossibly long drought… It was bliss like none other simply for the fact that Cid wasn't using me like I deserved. This was pleasure for pleasure with now psychological nuances attached. I shuddered as the tip of my cock swam in the back of his throat, too fast, so soon… so _close_…

And then he slowed to a crawl, easing my frantic heat to an agonizingly delicate pace I didn't think he was capable of. My fingers laced through his ruffled blond hair but it was too short to pull and demand release. He was actually _teasing_ me, putting pressure in wet, warm flicks in just the right places…Cid what are you _waiting_ for? Oh god, just give it to me… I couldn't take it anymore.

"Cid, _please!"_I finally gasped in my haze.

His lips parted and he chuckled briefly at my lust with my cock perched deliciously on those lips. Then he was thankfully blunt and forceful in his devouring of me—which went me into a bout of quivering the ecstasy was so consuming. I closed my eyes and stifled my moans in fear of others passing by hearing. It was so hot, so spine tingling so _good_ to have such a fantasy fulfilled… and then _too_ hot and _too_ good…

I gripped his shoulder in warning, and failed to muffle the cry of blessed, blissful coming. Cid flinched—which surprised me—but swallowed every drop as if he were worshiping me. God, why would he do that for me?

He looked up with an expression of almost relief, as if it were a long awaited treat. His hair was even more disheveled and the slightest tinge of sweat lingered on his skin. There was a static in the air that was distinctually still sexual as he moved to continue those electrifying kisses. He was so hard and I wanted him so badly…

I rolled him over, exploring every muscle in his neck and shoulders with my lips and every squirm and shudder from his spine and ass with my unmarred hand. He moaned with every touch, not caring in the slightest if we were discovered, like anything past this bed didn't matter. And for the moment, nothing did. Yes, I had made up my mind. I wanted him in me.

"Do you want to…?" I breathed.

"Yeah…" he moaned before I could finish.

"Lay back," I told him, pushing him down. There was a momentary resistance on his part and a flicker in his eye. He obviously wasn't used to being told what to do. For a microsecond, I almost was about to call him Cloud and order him to obey. I caught myself instantly and waited for that half-second of hesitation to be over.

He relaxed. When I brought his own hard on out and started a rhythm he rolled his head back and groaned loudly, with no restraint at all. I traced every line, bulge and crevice on his cock with my tongue, then brought the entire length into my mouth, eager to return the favor. He probably didn't even realize the string of curses he huffed in delight.

I pulled away and he made a sound of dislike from lack of friction. No patience at all, but that was fine. I kicked off the pants I had fallen asleep in and straddled, facing away. I couldn't look him in the eye, just like I couldn't look anyone else in the eye, for fear of knowing exactly what they thought of me. Good or bad, I just didn't want to know in the thralls of pleasure—it was a distraction.

As soon as Cid gained entry, what was left of my arousal leapt back to life. I choked on those cries of pleasure and pain as the pace was set. He was filling me absolutely and tickling my prostate with each thrust. Oh god, oh _god…!_ I put a firm grip onto the bedpost with the claw and manipulated myself ferverantly. A sinful but honest pleasure…oh god if he hit that spot _one more time…_

Cid wrapped his well shaped arms around my small waist and cried out through his teeth as he fucked me as hard as he could. The world was lost to me suddenly, and once again my restraint was shot. We moaned out exaltations together and came with near perfect timing. I'm not sure who was first. I couldn't even fell my body I was in such an elated state of euphoria.

All I could hear was my pounding heart and our slowing breath for a moment. I removed my claw from the bedpost—bent from my lack of awareness of what I was doing. Cid still had his hands around me, his face buried in my wild hair down my back. It was a nice feeling for once—something I would have never let Cloud do. Chaos was at last asleep under the soothing waves of endorphins I had been baptized in. I was… momentarily content?

Until I saw the shadow in the crack under the door, and heard the boot falls walking away. I knew those boots by heart. He had been standing there long enough to know. Oh no…

"Who the fuck—?" Cid demanded, moving to get up.

Oh no. Cloud knows. Cid knows. No, no, no.. stupid, stupid, _stupid! _Being drugged was no excuse. This should have never happened… oh no, no, no…

I sighed, pulling myself away from Cid's grasp. "Ah. That would be the circumstance,"

I still refused to face him, not wanting to see the anger, the hurt or hear the accusations. Chaos stirred and laughed at my delusion of contentment. _There you go again…_

Here I go again…

Cid was adjusting his jeans and leaping out the door to see who it was. "Cid," I called to stop him. Too late. He must have made eye contact, or at least seen Cloud round the corner. A frown marred his normally cocky face and he looked at me—full of resentment. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. I'll never forget it, either way—Chaos wouldn't let me for years to come, I was sure.

"Cloud? _Cloud?" _he demanded.

I nodded miserably. "What do you want me to say?"

Cid stood for a moment, and for that minute I was far more concerned with his reaction than the fact the door was open. He came back into the room, pulled his shoes on, threw his jacket over his shoulder and left. I didn't say a word.

He came back thirty seconds later awkwardly, and I handed him his pack of cigarettes that he had left in silence. I deserved the hatred he undoubtedly felt. After all, I'd brought it onto myself. Now the nights would be spent as they should have been in exchange for what I let befall Lucrecia—alone and in a hateful dark.

_Didn't I tell you that you were going to get what you deserved? _

You're right. You were always right. Chaos consume me…

End Chapter Six

*_that last bit wasn't in BtR, but I thought it would be good to throw in. new chappy next! Yaay! ^_~ love your feedback! _*


	8. A Secret No More

Lamentations  
Chapter Seven  
A Secret No More

No knock came to lure me out to go Materia hunting. I was grateful for it—I found myself ill again at Chaos' hands. So far, I had been able to prevent Chaos from taking over directly on the Highwind (I knew it would go strait for Cid…), but my control tended to slip in my sickness, sometimes more some days than the next.

What I heard in the walkways never helped. Between Tifa and Barret, or Yuffie and Nanaki, I wasn't sure, but it was never positive.

"Have you seen Vincent around?"

"Nah. That guy has some weird shit goin' on wit' him. I try not to think 'bout it. Why? What's so damn important?"

"Well Cloud asked the other day about him—"

"Speakin' a weirdos…"

"He's not _that_ weird, Barret…"

"My _ass_…"

They had noticed my absence—if only for Cloud's sake. Cloud. I was not looking forward to whatever he had to say to me. But I would take it when he was ready to give it, only because it was the least I deserved from him. Not because there was Cid, but because my actions had inevitably revealed what went on between us. They only thing that had been agreed on was that it would be a secret. And a secret it was no more.

There was no knock. I was steadying my head after trying to stand up too fast when the door handle rattled. Locked. "Vincent," the strangely calm voice called.

I didn't reply. Now of all times was not a good one, with Chaos ready to jump out at any second. At first, Cloud seemed ready to leave. Then the door was kicked off of its hinges and there he was. Strangely, he didn't look angry in the slightest, the fact that he had used his inhuman strength the break a metal door aside. Then again, he was very good at hiding it.

I didn't move. Let him accuse, shout and otherwise. But he did none of these. He stood there, looking placid for a moment with his arms across his chest. "You could have just said something," he finally said. I didn't move. I didn't dare for fear of Chaos. "Oh, that's right. You're the quiet one." A hint of sarcasm.

"I didn't promise you anything," I told him coolly.

"I didn't ask you to—"

"Then why did you come here?"

Cloud chewed on that for a minute, then stepped in. He didn't plan on being long; I heard his boots on the floor, not his feet. "I came here to tell you that we're going to the North Crater. On Thursday. That's the consensus." An uneasy pause. "And I'd appreciate it if—"

"I won't say anything. And neither will Cid."

"…Good," Cloud said with a nod after a moment, more to himself. "Good."

I shivered again as Cloud turned. _Rip his face off! Just bite the whole thing off! _Quiet… "Cid won't like that you broke the door."

Cloud stopped in his steps and slowly reached down to pick up a hinge that had been stripped loose. Then in his only show of vehemence he expressed, he sneered. "Cid can fix his own goddamned door." He chucked the metal chunk at me—I knew this without even looking, and that it would hurt if it hit. Hell, I _wanted_ it to.

Chaos didn't. It vied for control and wrestled it from me in that instant. It whipped around and caught the hinge in its fangs, spat it out and hissed or shrieked (or maybe both) at Cloud. It thought the look on his face when he jumped back was hilarious. I thought it was horrifying that I allowed him to see it. Back in control of myself, I covered my mouth and inched backwards on the bed. Good, God! Why was it so close to the surface lately!

Cloud stepped back in quickly, eager to touch—to _know. _"Jesus, Vincent—!"

"Get out," I snarled, his hands suddenly unwelcome. "Get _out!" _Cloud stood there for a minute, dumbfounded. He didn't budge an inch—bound and determined… _for what? _For me? Was it merely a sexual fault, or did it truly sting that he wasn't the only one?

"What won't you tell me that you'll tell Cid?" Cloud asked quietly. "I won't tell you that I'm not pissed or whatever, because I'm done lying to myself. I guess it's just unfounded. Just… … why Cid of all people?"

The world sort of spun as I dug my fingers into my scalp, little flashes of the past cracking through my thoughts like lightning. "Would you rather that it had been you?" I managed, swallowing a dry heave—there was nothing left in my system for Chaos to upset. I clenched my teeth as a ripple of pain traveled up my spine and into my shoulder blades.

Cloud let his hand wander through my hair, pausing on my fingers, seeing how tense they were. Seeing a bit of himself perhaps in my apparent pain. "Yeah, I guess I would have," he finally said. That hand brushed some hair out of my face. Chaos wanted it for a new chew toy. I leaned into it briefly—the only real show of affection I had ever given him.

"I fear for you," I told him again, trembling with the restraint effort. "Go. Don't come back."

"It's over…"

I nodded, unable to suppress the way my muscles tensed in resistance.

"…Okay," Cloud agreed softly. "You know… I've been meaning to tell you. I wish I were like you sometimes."

_No, no you don't, _I wanted to say.

"I know this is your problem, and you don't want me butting in. But I gotta say, you handle everything with the same apathy. It's like you don't feel anything. Even now—whatever you're going through doesn't look like it phases you much, but it is a big deal for you to even show it a fraction of what you are."

_Are you insane? _

"You did the same thing with me. And you wanna know something?"

_No. But I have no choice. _

"I hope Cid chokes on it."

_It_ being the apathy he was referring to I'm assuming. He took his hand back, propped the door back up on his way out and left me in a cold, dark silence. I can't say that his reaction really bothered me, though it wasn't quite what I was expecting either. _Apathy. _Is that what they thought it was?

Another spasm of pain shook me. I had to get out before Chaos did something irreversible. I stumbled out the broken door, praying no one was out and about, hoping it was night because I just wasn't sure anymore.

Fresh air. The deck. Skin started to rip on my back; I could feel the blood and the bone shifting to accommodate black sticky wings already. I stumbled onto the railing and looked down. Clouds. Tree tops. Craggy rocks.

"No _seriously_ Red, what are _you_ gonna use your Materia for when this is all over?"

"Yuffie… you don't even know if we're going to come out of this _alive_…"

"Aw, c'mon!"

The voices startled me. The others… Chaos could smell the blood in their veins from here they were so close.

"Hey, did you hear something?"

I launched myself backward off of the railing before much was seen. If I cannot control it, the least I could do was put my comrades at the smallest risk possible.

_Blood! Spread it to the ends of the earth! Consume the weak! _

I curled up in my own dark thoughts of Lucrecia and Cid while Chaos roamed and terrorized.

End Chapter Seven  
******************************


	9. Honest Secret

Lamentations  
Chapter Eight  
Honest Secret

Once again, my internal clock roused me at 7:30 on the nose, but it wasn't as if I had a way of telling when I woke up. Somehow, Chaos had landed me on the very top of the Highwind (a favorite of it's perches if I'm not mistaken…), settled just outside of Bone Village. I was muddy and not surprisingly covered with dry blood. It was almost scary how used to it I was becoming.

At this hour, it was a fairly simple task to slip unnoticed into a shower stall, then back to my quarters without encountering a soul. Most of AVALANCHE and the crew were either asleep or getting supplies in the excavation site.

I dressed and deemed myself in well enough control to be among allies and innocents, though my gut was still quivering from the trauma Chaos brought upon my body. Cloud had said Thursday. Tomorrow. Best not neglect my responsibilities to my weapons.

By the time most of the ship was up and about I had all I needed spread out before me in the conference room. It was an automated task to take each gun apart, inspect, upkeep and clean. It was almost meditative, for my mind was blissfully blank in the task.

There was a jangling, like that of a cat with a bell on its collar. Lucrecia's black cat named Sabbath? No, you idiot. I looked up and saw Nanaki sitting in the doorway. I tensed. He saw my jump from the deck last night. I was positive. Nothing was said. I think he sensed my unease. He merely nodded and padded away—a complete understanding achieved without a word. Smart beast.

The next interruption came a good 45 minutes later, when I was just finishing up Death Penalty. I knew the footsteps by heart now, just as I had memorized Cloud's. The slight clack of untied laces and the way the heel hit dramatically harder than the toe gave it away. Cid.

I nodded civilly towards him. If he wanted to drag this out, here was not the place. I was hoping he would act his age, but I suppose I was wrong.

"Hey," he said, leaning on the table with both hands like he usually did when outlining a plan of action with his crew. "Can we talk here?"

My ears didn't pick up anyone outside, so I shrugged. More abuse. God knows I _deserved_ it a thousand times over… "Alright."

"We're both adults here," Cid laid out firmly. So he _was_ going to act his age. "What exactly is going on?"

Point blank. He did no fancy small talk, and with one question, he had me cornered. Maybe he wasn't so much of an ass-talker as I suspected. "I didn't indicate that anything would continue," I reminded him, loading a clip into my preferred weapon. "To either of you."

Cid had a hard time digesting that one. As if to say, "I give up," he threw his hands up. "That's fine," he lied. "If that's the way you wanted it after that shit you know… fine."

He was getting irate. Was it truly that earth-shattering to him? He had put nothing on the line, where _I_ was the one who had taken the risk. And yet when I retreated, _he_ was the one who was upset. "Interesting…" I mused. Perhaps he had more at stake than even _he_ realized. But it couldn't have been more than that tinkering curiosity. An affection was there, though clearly no understanding had been reached. He couldn't be in _that_ deep…

Cid stuffed his hands in his pockets and stalked off, frustrated. It must have been a real slap in the face for him to find out I had been "seeing" someone. But surely he understood the phrase "no strings attached…"

_Just tear his limbs off and shove them right up his tight little ass hole…!_

"Quiet…" I ordered softly, returning to the monotony of my gun work.

_Smear pieces of him all over Cloud's quarters! Use his head as a trophy! Wear his blood! _

"Cid, you gotta minute?"

Confrontation. I heard Cid and Cloud outside in the hall, though they were the least of my worries at the moment. Apparently I was not in as much control as I'd like to be, given the red haze that settled over my vision.

"You talk to Vincent too?"

"Yeah. I did."

"Really?"

It was time to get the hell out of here. If this kept happening, I could not stay here. I suppose it would be a better idea to let Chaos hunt in the Crater—destruction for the greater good. My head started to fog…

Abandoning my weapons (a difficult thing for me to do in such haste), I made my way for the nearest exit. Cloud and Cid were bathing in pure tension between each other. Cloud had a hand on the hilt of one of his swords, his sharp Mako eyes squinted and his lips parted for some insult. Cid had his arms crossed, his fingers unconsciously twitching for the Materia on his belt. His scruffy chin was thrust out with a sneer on the lips that had induced such sinful pleasure upon me just nights before…

I purposely pushed by between them. "Oh please…" Now was not the time for such petty squabbles. I was annoyed with them, yes, but I was a little more concerned with the familiar pangs of transformation.

_There's a reason they hate you so much…_

Yuffie stumbled around the corner, blocking my exit. She was making a beeline for the bathroom. I ducked in and locked the door. "HEY!" I heard her protest. "Who the hell…?"

_It's the same reason Lucrecia hated you…_

My knees buckled as a blistering agony shocked my system. I grabbed the sink to keep myself up. There had to be a way out…

"Come oooooooooon! Who's in there?" Yuffie was whining, pounding on the door. "Hurry it uuuuuup!"

I clutched my chest. My breath was being seized and my skin was starting to change.

"There's another bathroom that way. And don't you dare blow your chunks on my goddamn floor! Hey…! HEY! Goddammit…" A soft knock. "Uh… Vince?"

"Go away," I managed. A window. Anything at this point. I choked and vomited, losing my vision. I got the feeling Hojo made this degrading with intent. Blood and pain and hate… I stumbled towards the window, ripped it open with the metal appendage that was now my left arm and threw myself out into the whipping wind. Airborne again… When did we…?

Chaos seized the opportunity. _Wouldn't you like to kill them both? You could do horrible things to them as they died. You could watch them squirm… just like you did for Hojo! _

Riding a hot black wind upon my wings of oblivion…

_Wouldn't you love to make him bleed? To tear at his flesh and just let it gush all over you? Tasty morsels like them deserve a slow, hideous end… It's a pity that she's dead. She must have been a slutty little fuck, wasn't she? _

I didn't mean that Lucrecia; _I didn't mean to call you a whore. _And yet barely your spirit remains to tell you so… you were in so much agony over your son you gave to Jenova, that anything I said that didn't involve him slid off of you like the very Lifestream ridden water that supported you…

You would not accept my apology. And you had every right to reject me…

_She was such a tight cunt, wasn't she? A hot, wet, whorey cunt? _

I made love to her!

_You degrade her! You fucked her ass you were so selfish, even when she told you she hated it! _

These aren't my memories!

_You could take up with Cid what you left off with her.. _

No, not Cid.

_You really like him! I'll rip both your hearts out! _

Leave him out of this. I blew my chance. He despises me; it's enough.

_No… no, far from it! _

From a murky fog I could see a blurry figure. I was second to Chaos, but I could smell out each little capillary and see the vital heat sources in its body… Prey…

It was making sounds I couldn't understand. Adrenaline meant fear… fear tasted delicious…

Eager for a sample of terror, I dove in, sinking in teeth and claws through soft skin…

There was a sting to the face—something of mere annoyance normally, but a voice rolled the clouds over my senses back, and a new personality butted Chaos completely out of the picture.

_Darkness may rule you, but it won't hold _me _down!_

Rockets and stars and clouds and engines… the smell of gasoline and the sound of a vintage car… delectable sensations like these bombarded me, digging me out from the depths of darkness. But it was not I that found these things so undeniably pleasant…

"Cid! Your uncle's home!"

The house was blurry, but the faces were not, so clearly etched into Cid's child memory. Every gray hair in his uncle's mustache; the way his hands were calloused and dirty from some garage and the way his coat smelled of old cars and nicotine when he lifted Cid up and twirled him around and around and around…

These were Cid's memories. What on earth was he doing _here? _

_How old was I? Five?_ I heard him scoff at the faces.

The woman was large and had a permanent smile etched onto her prominent cheeks. Butterscotch… she always had butterscotch candies in her pockets, which she shared liberally. She looked nothing like the blond boy peeling the flight goggles off of an older, dark haired, dark eyed man.

_They weren't your parents?_

_No… my aunt and uncle raised me. Not sure where my real folks ended up, but I never really gave a rat's ass. They let me have a little too much sugar and didn't discipline me much… but hey, it all worked out…_

The most glorious contraption a child could lay eyes on loomed into view—bare with just the frame, but it's interior was pregnant with parts and possibility.

"It's going to be the Tiny Bronco!"

"So be it!"

Hours upon hours of precarious and all consuming work poured into the plane, and it rose from the humble frame to a great being of flight. They boy grew into a teenager, then into that awkward phase between teenager and man.

Of course there was a girl. She weaved in and out of blueprints and engine parts, casting her soft femaleness over the masculinly charged garage. Sitting on a half finished wing; laughing as paint cans toppled onto Cid; then hovering over him in concern. His curses slid off of her slim shoulders and she only smiled with a startling beauty from a creature so simple…

_Lucrecia…_ I thought. Very much like her—so much in fact that I almost mistook her for the siren that haunted my nightmares.

_Yeah, I guess she does kinda look like her…_ Cid agreed.

Love so young… Shera. That was her name. Bright and capable, but resigned. It was love, I could feel the fresh ache as if it were mine again. _How old were you?_

Mm… mebbe 16…

An absence in his heart—one that had gone numb over a few years… _Where's your uncle?_

He died in that war in Wutai… I barely remember it…

"That thing'll never fly!"

"God, why do you bother, Highwind?"

"Tiny Bronco? Are ya compensating for somethin' there, Cid?"

_Shera, even you doubted me. Goddammit, I'll show you and the whole fucking town!_

A kiss to the girl he loved, then strap in, buckle down, switch and fiddle with buttons and knobs and flight goggles down and ready. Take off day.

The engine roared in protest and the frame rattled in strain, but the Tiny Bronco barreled out into the sunny field. A prayer sent to gods he wasn't too sure he believed in perhaps bestowed the Bronco with just enough boost it needed to lift… up… up… UP! As if by pure will of hope, Cid made the thing fly.

It was as if I were one with his ecstasy of the moment. He ripped off the goggles that once his beloved uncle donned and threw his fists in the air in worship of the sky. Yes! YES!

The darkness simply melted away, and for one blessed moment, I could smile unburdened, without the ache of fakeness, maybe even laugh a little…

Literally exalted for what he had done, Cid lost himself in the brunette beauty—kissing every inch of her, preening the heat between them and in a young fury ridding barriers as quickly as possible… Shera gasped at Cid's arousal at the moment, and in the haze of success and delirium he drove into her right there in the grass…

The memory fuzzed into a more abstract and repressed image. _Uh… I was a little … overwhelmed at the time…_ Cid stammered in his embarrassment for lapsing into something as personal as sex.

_No, no, I don't blame you…_ I assured with an empty longing for the simplicity he had but did not cherish. _I envy you…_

_You don't need to. Forgive the corniness, but dreams come true, dammit! I'll prove it to you!_ He seemed lost in thought… _Fuck, what do I have to do to show him…_

Rufus. Scarlet. Tseng. Cid held onto these faces with startling clarity. His lack of attention to detail otherwise bothered my curious eyes, trying to catch all the surroundings and every little part of the scene as they were trained so vigorously to do. But Cid paid little mind to such things, and the joy that ShinRa had so liberally distributed, then ripped away was a bitter blow.

However brief it was, the happiness was intense. The money ShinRa gave for the plans to the Bronco alone was massive; for the Highwind mind-boggling. On top of the world, Cid began his biggest and most impressive endeavor ever: to touch the stars.

Shera grew farther and farther away from the jumble of plans bubbling in Cid's overactive mind, though her loyalty clung to me, and stung it was so deep and unrequited. Cid's brain filled with numbers and plans and tools and money. Selfish… _Yeah… I know…_

Didn't that fall through?

You said it yourself. Circumstance fucked me over, mostly 'cause of ShinRa. I could have scoffed at his using my dodgy words against me. Everything he held dear was poured into this rocket—even Shera risked death—which ultimately destroyed the launch. Yes. I already knew this. Again, Cid's honesty won through. It may be selfish and cruel, but looking out for oneself was the most truth anyone could give themselves. It had given him a frustrating, imperfect happiness. And that was all that mattered. _But you were there, Vince. You watched me get into space… you helped me. I'm complete because of you…_

He was mistaken, I knew he was. I had nothing to do with the rocket. Had Cloud not mentioned the fact that Hojo might be involved, and had I not followed a foolish—but now fulfilled—hope of ridiculous revenge, I'd still be in that coffin, atoning for every heavy sin upon my heart.

_That was mostly Cloud…_

Fuck Cloud. It's just you an' me now. 

He was bitterly jealous of Cloud. And now I realized why he had become so upset—the guy really _liked_ me. Hate was nowhere near the picture, as I had so feared. Now that I knew what it was, I clung to him, digging my fingers—of both hands in this world of memory—into a steady chest, rasping in affectionate laughter at my foolishness. I didn't have a word for it anymore, but now that I had _it_, I refused to let go, so starved for whatever _it_ was from years of cold, cold scorn…

Spinning stars and a lift in my chest from lack of gravity startled me. The rocket, cannoning through space and spiraling into something deeply realized by Cid. Something wonderfully elating…

_I never saw it the way you did…_

No?

I was sort of queasy at the time… I admitted. _You're right though, it was … breathtaking. _

Falling… falling through space, burning in the descent back to earth… a blur and jumble of clutching something to break the fall, metal hulls, broken seatbelts, Huge Materia and a desperate wish to live, if only to snuff out another life in the same way that he had snuffed out mine…

_Do you believe me now? _Cid whispered in my ear, showing a strange tenderness that was very uncharacteristic of the sarcastic and rough veneer he portrayed.

_What?_

About being human. You can't smother something like that.

I… couldn't be human after everything I had subjected upon others and been subjected to. I wanted to though… good god, I wanted to be human enough to just peel Cid away from AVALANCHE and Sephiroth and Meteor…and just be a simple man, as I was a forgotten time ago. To be condemned for having homosexual tendencies, not for being a monster. To allow myself to be weak around another human being, the Turks and their rules be damned…

_You need to come back from the Chaos. It's not so much that I'm gonna die.. it's just that I don't want it to be a waste… you know?_

Cid no… I couldn't have!

Yeah…

That can't be! 

Chaos giggled manically as it receded away, leaving time to kick back in. The force of the blow it had inflicted upon Cid sent us skidding on the hull after a painful _thud! _I was still clutching Cid's chest desperately, but something was horribly wrong.

I pushed up and my mind reeled with how much blood we were covered in. It was everywhere! Over my chest and in my tangled here… in my mouth…And Cid bore the brunt of Chaos' horrible rage, blood pouring out of claw induced gashes on his arms and neck with a wound gored right into his chest…

I covered my bloody mouth with bloody fingers of my one hand. Cid swallowed blood, tried to say something, but ungracefully puked what he had swallowed instead, falling unconscious.

"Don't die you bastard! You… you can't die!" I commanded as I gripped his shoulders in a frightened haze.

What have I done?

End Chapter Eight  
******************************************************


	10. No More Secrets

Lamentations  
Chapter Nine  
No More Secrets

Mother of god, I _killed_ him. I was sure of it. Maybe it was a blind and panicked act of determination to not lose him that got me to move so quickly. Cid was heavy, but the adrenaline numbed me from the effort.

I don't remember which path I took through the Highwind to get to his quarters, throwing our clothes in the wash or even cleaning up the blood. I remembered fumbling for Materia though, and cursing my lack of it due to my negligence to AVALANCHE as a whole lately. I used up the un-mastered Cure and waited impatiently for it to charge again.

Here I was, about ready to snap. What little there was holding me together would break if Cid Highwind died. Why or how was not my guess that so much would rest on one man, much like how infatuated I had become with Lucrecia had weighed so much on her. It had ruined us.

_Trust no one._

If you must trust, trust only thy instincts

Never underestimate thy enemy

When in doubt, shoot

When in certainty, suspect

Obedience is golden

Kissing ass shall only get thee so far

Kicking ass shall take thee places

Thou shalt always expect the worst.

A talkative Turk is usually a dead Turk

Oh the cold-blooded things I had done under that creed. My own father was dead by my hands from those words, typed carefully and posted on the bulletin board of the young Percival ShinRa's office. Perhaps it had been a joke at first, but it had remained, crinkled and worn on the edges it had been there so long…

A Turk no more, and yet another innocent I held close to my ashen and blackened heart was going to die by my hands. Hojo's curse—ShinRa's curse—prevails again: to destroy all one touches.

I laid my ear across Cid's chest. Breath. Shallow, shallow breath and a weak heartbeat. He was on the edge of life and death. So warm… my lips brushed the fragile flesh over the wound—there would be a deep scar from this. I let my fingers run over the muscles in his chest—every inch of him sacred…

The man needed pants, before I got too carried away.

With a start I realized that none of this was entirely sexual, and for no other save Lucrecia would I have gone to such lengths to spare a life. And here I wanted him dead a week ago…

Half decent, I gave the Materia another go. I allowed a small sigh of relief when Cid stirred, cursed and grunted as he tried to sit up.

"I wouldn't," I warned him.

I must have startled him because he jerked in surprise at my voice as his eyes slowly focused on my in the dark. "Oh man…" he grunted, inspecting the damage. "I thought I was a goner…"

"It's fortunate that you weren't," I told him sort of stiffly. Would he be angry? Given from what I had seen, probably not. I couldn't say truthfully that I could understand the way he thought though—I would have expected him to be rather pissed off.

He pushed himself up by the elbows and took a good look at my face. Fury? Rejection? "Jesus, I didn't hurt you too bad, did I?"

Of all the…! Half dead and he continues to worry about _my_ well-being? For such a selfish man, he was putting an awful lot of focus on me—which was almost unsettling if it hadn't been so damn flattering. It still made me a little uneasy, but I almost smiled. "You're not the one who should be asking that question."

Cid waved the Materia away. "Use that on yourself, Vince. I'm fine now."

Was my monstrous presence truly so humbling? He must have assumed that this Curative was unlimited in its use. "It's not the mastered one," I explained.

Cid rose an eyebrow. "Who the hell has FullCure then?"

A strange detail that he had noticed—that I usually carried that particular orb on my person. Strange because it was a subtlety that wasn't attached to a face. "That's not the point," I told him. He shouldn't have been dwelling on Materia—though having to keep track of it for some time himself had gotten him into the habit I suppose. He should have been concentrating on surviving.

"You were gonna make a point?" Cid chuckled, about ready to cross his arms like he usually did. He thought better of it, it seems, and he remained still.

I was solely to blame for his pain. Should have stayed in that coffin. Shouldn't have put _anyone_ at risk. Hot tension melted into a cold pit in my stomach reminiscent of despair as I let the familiar weight of blame and guilt perch itself back onto my conscience. "I can't tell you how deeply sorry I am for hurting you." The apology sounded flat to me. I hoped Cid wouldn't mistake fatigue for insincerity. "And… seeing how truly happy you can be has shown me how unfathomably selfish I have been…"

"What the hell did I tell you about kicking yourself?" he barked suddenly, as if to strike me upside the head with his words. Normally I didn't take kindly to such orders, but his was deserving. I wasn't sure what to say, but Cid's addiction saved me from awkwardness. "Hey, do me a favor? Get in my desk and fish me out a cigarette?"

Obviously he wasn't one for dwelling on the past. I obliged him, fishing around in an unfamiliar desk drawer until the little square box made it's way to my searching fingers. The lighter followed.

Cid puffed contentedly and thoughtfully on his cigarette, putting a blessed action between us to buffer my unease. "So Cloud—?"

"Forget about Cloud," I interrupted. What could Cloud offer at this point? Nothing my soul yearned for. He had lied to himself so long and had been put through a similar torture. Closer to humanity than I, but no truth could be found in him—not even he could find any. And though he was young and beautiful, with delicious flesh and endless energy, his attractiveness was shadowed by his mental exhaustion and his tangled soul. "It's you and I for the moment."

Cid nodded with that grin of his. "Are you ready then?"

"Ready?"

"For Sephiroth."

The name put another knot in my stomach so I couldn't say anything for a moment. Lucrecia's baby. More of a monster than even I could claim to be, but the sad, pitiable being couldn't have even fought against what Hojo subjected him to strait from the very womb in which he was conceived. The womb of the most beautiful woman in the world. It made me wonder sometimes if I too were destined for the same descent into madness. Too much… just too much to even try and sort out…

"Yes," I lied.

Cid took a drag almost coyly, not breaking eye contact or his smirk. "Liar."

He had me again. I half shrugged."…True."

"Is he really your son?"

I could have cringed, but I didn't. No, Cid really wasn't a bullshitter. Tactlessly so, and I wasn't sure if he meant it or not. Perhaps it was a part of his charm. Sephiroth was a difficult guess gene-wise. By my own negligence to her, Lucrecia had turned to Hojo (or more likely he plucked her up in her moment of weakness…), so in that period between lovemaking and conception, it could have been either of us. I tried to envision the face, but the only parallel I could find was between Sephiroth and Lucrecia, neither me nor Hojo. It could have just been my minds refusal to really know though…

"He looks so much like Lucrecia. I can't be sure," I said truthfully.

Cid bit his tongue for a moment, and for once considered what popped out of his mouth. "He's insane, Vince," he finally came up with. No, not a drop of tact in him.

"I know," I sighed heavily. "That's why I told Lucrecia that he was dead. No. I'd rather not know. He must die anyway, and knowing makes the sin no better."

I surprised myself at how easy it was to say these things to Cid, and how though I wasn't entirely comfortable with it, I wasn't incredibly squeamish about it either.

"Cloud wants to move out soon," Cid was saying.

_I know…_ I let a broken smile escape. Ah, atonement and the price of it… "Then with the death of Sephiroth is the death of my repentance. My atonement will be complete… and though I will grieve his loss as if he were mine, I will let it go." Was this how Cloud felt when he spoke to me? Like I was trying to convince myself and not Cid… "It's time to heal," I decided. "You told me that, Cid. And … I believe you."

Cid shrugged, as if I hadn't bore my soul to him. "That or we all die. You know the whole all-powerful thing and then there's Meteor and Holy to worry about or some crap like that… the save-the-world bullshit…"

He wasn't too terribly bothered about the whole situation because he didn't permit it to do so. Simple genius. "I see now," I said in no particular direction. "It makes sense."

Cid seemed satisfied with my unplanned rambling. He finished his cigarette and snuffed it out on the nightstand. "So what do you wanna do after we save the world?"

The question caught me off guard. "I… never thought about it," I admitted. Go back to the coffin? No… Hojo was dead and if we succeeded, Sephiroth would be too. The coffin held no purpose anymore. I would have my life back. The thought sort of scared me.

Cid laughed heartily at my reaction. "Me neither!" His hands darted to the fresh flesh, ready to break from the strain. "Ooh… sore…"

I pressed my lips into the scar, as if I could just suck away the pain I had given him. My body reacted, wanting to counteract the mauling with something explicit, but I inwardly shook my head. He was in no condition, even for gentle play. It was nice to see the hairs rise on his arms as I did so though. "That was sort of a cliché statement, Cid…" I told him instead.

"Huh?"

"'Dreams come true…'" The words were laughable even, something off of those movies girls giggled about after they had a good cry, the kind of girls that threw up constantly to fit into those tiny skirts to show off their ass.

Cid sort of snorted. "Sorry for not being creative, but it was the least I could do, considering you were about to rip my head off…"

The statement stung, but I don't think that it was meant to be malicious. I suppose I could tell him what he would hear of me. He knew well enough that I unfolded very carefully and cautiously, and no more force attempts were needed (nor tolerated for that matter, but I'm sure he realized that). "Your kindness daunted me at first…"  
I confessed into his abdomen, following the trail of blond hairs that led to the path of sin with the fingers of my one hand. "I still don't understand why you would extend it to me of all people."

Another chuckle bounced against my lips. "If it makes you feel better, neither do I," Cid admitted. "But don't question it, man. Aren't you glad I did?"

"Undoubtedly," I immediately said, not thinking. It was a pure answer, one that he deserved.

I hadn't thought about Lucrecia unprovoked for a while. In fact… around him, I rarely did anymore. He was a balm for my pain—and as odd as it was without the past hovering over my shoulder, it was a nice void, one that was reminiscent of happiness.

It was a shock when I realized it. My concern was out of care, not necessity. I really liked being around him—my lines of personal space seemed to expand in his presence (and as most know, I keep them rather close). He was no less my love as he was my friend—I'm not sure what he was to me, but he made loyalty seem a lot less disgusting. Both notions were still foolish, but a little more tolerable.

No more lamentations. I let myself be content with the sound of Cid's breathing and heartbeat, as he seemed to be just as content to fall asleep with his hand in my hair.

The price to pay for such contentment would be determined in the crater, by the calamity that heaven sent and by the only being in the world that could possibly have my genetics swimming around in him. A price well worth paying.

We shall see…

END  
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